Maria Kanellis On Her Talks With WWE Before She Got Pregnant, Planned To Work Up to 26 Weeks

Maria Kanellis got pregnant soon after she re-signed with WWE in 2019, and she recently talked about her discussions with WWE at the time and when she found out she was pregnant. Maria announced her pregnancy on the July 1st, 2019 episode of Raw, just two weeks after they had signed new deals with the company. Maria got some criticism from wrestling fans for the situation and on a recent episode of Ten Count with Steve Fall, she talked about being open with WWE about their desire to have a second child and having “long conversations” about the situation, as well as what she was ultimately told by WWE and more. You can check out the highlights below:

On her discussions with WWE before she got pregnant: “There’s a lot there’s a lot to unpack there. But first and foremost, first baby, my daughter Frederica, was not planned. We had tried for a long time, but we thought there was a problem. We thought that we couldn’t get pregnant. I didn’t know it if it was me, or because my mom has had — she ended up having a hysterectomy when she was younger. So I didn’t know if like you know something was going on with me until it was — I just never thought I could get pregnant. And so Freddie came, and it was a total accident.

“Then, were getting ready to sign with WWE again, we had long conversations with WWE. And I told them I wanted to have another baby right away, because I wanted the two kids to have each other. And I told WWE like, ‘Hey, it’s fine, I could just not sign, and we can part ways. That’s fine. Mike’ll stay, and I’ll go and have a second baby. Or we could do pay-per-appearance so like, if I were to get pregnant then you could just write me off off television and you wouldn’t have to pay me anymore. So there was that option. I asked to be a producer backstage because you know, you can still work as a producer backstage for longer than you can if you’re on-air talent. So I I worked with them. I tried like to figure out a way that I could have my family plan — which by the way, I didn’t have to discuss with them. Like, it was none of their business. So like. I never had to discuss with them what my family plan was going to be, but I did because I’m a professional and that’s what you do.”

On what they were ultimately told: “The final answer that we got was — it was Mark Carrano at the time and Mark said, ‘Vince loves kids, so if you were to get pregnant, no problem. No big deal.’ So we were like, ‘Okay! Cool!'”

On when they found out they were pregnant: “So we went ahead and like within — it’s like the first time that we were like, ‘Hey we’re trying,’ and then voila, baby! And we didn’t know that we were pregnant when we actually signed our contracts, and we didn’t find out until three days before the thing that we did with Becky. And for us it was tough. Because we were in that like, nine weekish [period of pregnancy]. And so we weren’t really sure that we wanted to announce. And I think WWE actually knew before we did, because they had done drug testing for their drug testing policy like a couple weeks before. I think they knew, and they were trying to wait it out to see if we were gonna say something. But I hadn’t taken a test yet.

“And so that testing happened, and then I found out like — no actually, I found out on Wednesday, the Wednesday before Monday Night Raw. And they called me on like Thursday and I was like, ‘Yeah I just found out.’ It was crazy.”

On planning to work for the start of the pregnancy: “I didn’t care, I was gonna work anyways. And I had already gotten approved to up until 26 weeks. My doctor had written me a note that I could work. And I mean, women work all the time pregnant, so of course it’s a lot easier for me to walk around and play a character than it is for me to work at a restaurant all day long… being on your feet all freaking day long nine months pregnant is a lot tougher than it would have been for me to walk down a ramp, say a few lines and then go to the back. So for me, yeah I would have worked up until my doctor told me, ‘Hey, it’s time to stay home.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Ten Count with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.